It has been a perfect week for Andy Murray with Wimbledon coming up.
Pressure
We all have opinions and thoughts on how Wimbledon will pan out and importantly Andy needs to have people he listens to in his corner like his coach, physio and trainer. Anybody else is irrelevant.
If they are there they will distract you and that will tire you out because two weeks is a long time if you are distracted by other factors. Murray does read newspapers and listens to what people say. Pete Sampras never read anything at Wimbledon until the Monday when he was getting a flight back home. You have to detach yourself.
Rivals
Murray is my second favourite but Nadal has changed the equation with what he's done this year. It's been an amazing year and an incredible clay court season.
He's done the hard thing by defending his French Open and beating Djokovic. Wimbledon for the Spaniard is still very important but it won't involve the same stresses and strains of Roland Garros. Whatever he achieves now will only benefit his ranking and mentally he's got ahead of Murray. He's beaten him in the big matches.
Nadal has got the edge but strangely he is the most vulnerable player in the first week. He could come up against Ernests Gulbis or Marcos Baghdatis and he'll have more chances of losing.
We know what Djokovic is capable of. Winning in Halle at the weekend will be crucial for Federer because he won't have to fend off the questions about his 10-month title drought and not winning since Cincinnati in August.
Top Brits
Elena Baltacha said she was thinking of quitting tennis after the Olympics last year and, after all her injuries, winning the Aegon Nottingham Challenge title this weekend was a great achievement.
It was the same with Rafa. When you're out injured it's a pretty lonely place and you just can't do what you always have done. But you can use it as a positive, as Murray touched on with the French Open.
Missing that made him realise how much he loved it, so to get back playing was a positive for Baltacha and winning is great. Going to Eastbourne and Wimbledon is just excitement for her with no pressure. She can just go out there and play and whatever she achieves is an extra bonus.
I must also mention the achievements of
Dan Evans. The 23-year-old from Birmingham and Britain's No 5 made the third round at Queen's after beating Argentina's Guido Pella and Finland's Jarkko Nieminen.
He came unstuck against Juan Martin del Potro but it was a good effort and he goes into the Wimbledon qualifiers looking to move on and back up what he achieved last week.
Barry Cowan will be providing a daily column on the Sky Sports website during Wimbledon.
